


what's the point of tragedy if i can't kiss you through it?

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 17:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10495893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: END OF THE WORLD // WITH YOUi tell you it’s all over andyou laugh. i love that aboutyou. you say we don’t have long,andwhat’s the point oftragedy if i can’tkiss you through it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> this fic came about after a night of drinking and watching rogue one. i found it today and decided to try and clean it up a bit.
> 
>  
> 
> [poem source](http://crimescened.tumblr.com/post/124234068851/end-of-the-world-with-you-i-tell-you-its-all)

The end of the world occurs slowly and too fast all at once.

It jumped on them quick enough, barely giving them time to prepare, and now, when they’re all out of options and have resigned themselves that this is really it, it stops, Slowing, slinking, slithering. Like a cat playing with its prey in those final moments before it rips its head off.

The heat comes four days after the black rain, and he’s not sure which is worse.

They end up losing around eighteen people to the rain, and then several more are picked off by heatstroke. They don’t have enough drinkable water and they’re all dropping like flies. By the time they accept that this is it, the end is really here, they’ve lost forty three of their people while dozens more are symptomatic.

There are no more funerals. It’s hard to be poetic in the wake of death about people you knew when you’re burning bodies every morning and night.

Arkadia is grey and morose and as soon as there’s a glimmer of good enough weather, they leave, ferrying people across to Becca’s island in droves, a mass exodus. There’s nothing left for people to do, just sit and wait with their loved ones for the death wave.

Bellamy is amongst the last to leave, and it feels a bit like that day at the dropship. A failed trip to the ocean then, a successful one now.

The heat has started to creep back in and they run out of water before they hit the shore. He shrugs out of his jacket, has half the mind to shrug out of his shirt too, but the sun is stinging and it’s an honest to god toss up about whether perpetual stickiness or mild sunburn is worse. In the end he compromises by dribbling water over his head before boarding the boat that will take them away once and for all.

He only does the bare minimum of updating Kane on their status, instead feeling the weariness settle deep in his bones and letting it consume him. He only wakes up when the ride gets rough as they approach the dock.

He’s still half asleep, in a daze and everything feels like it’s underwater. He’s still trying to gather his bearings when a body crashes into him, almost sending them stumbling into the sand.

Bellamy always forgets just how _small_ Clarke really is. She always makes herself known, her presence alone is enough to fill any room, but whenever he holds her like this, he realises. His arms cover the entire span of her back while her head slots neatly underneath his chin, and she must have taken a bath not too long ago because her hair is soft and clean.

Clarke Griffin is just a girl and sometimes even he forgets that.

“This is really happening,” she sniffs, lips brushing against his neck, “We’re all really going to die.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what to tell her and instead pulls her closer, screwing his eyes shut.

-

This is how they deal with the end of the world: by treating it as the most depressing party in all of fucking history.

During the day, people try to act fine. There’s access to clean water here, and the animals haven’t quite gone into hiding as yet. They’re clean and fed and rested and from an outsider’s point of view, it all seems fine.

And then it isn’t.

The house isn’t big enough to hold everyone, and they spill out onto the grounds living in tents. Some people have accepted their fate, some try to ignore it, some get drunk.

Bellamy sleeps in the house.

He didn’t plan too- he had a chem tent, and was fine roughing it outside, but Clarke, Clarke who hasn’t left his side since he got here, whose hand keeps brushing against his as they walk, shakes her head.

“You can share with me and Raven,” she says, resting her hand atop his. “There’s enough room.”

He blinks, staring down at her. “Clarke, I don’t know if-”

“ _Please_ ,” she says, cutting him off. She’s looking up at him with wide beseeching eyes, head tilted, and how can any expect him to say no to this girl? “I just- If this really is the end I want to be close to you.”

And fuck, if he had doubts before, they’re certainly obliterated now.

Not for the first time he tastes those three little words on the back of his tongue. _I love you_ seems far too insignificant for how he feels about her. How do you even tell someone who’s done so much for you, who’s brought you back from the brink more times than you count, how you feel about them? An _I love you_ doesn’t seem to do it justice.

Instead, he swallows them back down, back to that little box he tries to keep them in. Bellamy has known that he has loved Clarke Griffin for a long time now, and one day that box will not be big enough to hold all his love. He used to think that one day it’ll all spill forth from his mouth, when they manage to sort themselves out, when they're _ready_ , a never ending stream of _‘I love you’s_ , but now he’s not so sure.

“Alright,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, and lets her lead him up to the house.

Before he would have stopped in his steps to admire the grandiose of the place, but he is so tired. They both are, brought to their knees by the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“Go take a bath,” she tells him after they walk up to her room. She takes his pack and rifle from him, and then delicately rests his fraying Ark jacket over one of the arm chairs. “Go.”

He doesn’t even protest, stripping out of his sweaty t shirt as he walks towards the ensuite, and it’s quickly followed by his pants, both of which he leaves in a crumpled heap in the corner. There isn’t a door separating the ensuite from the bedroom; in fact the only thing that stands between them is the frosted glass of the shower which only vaguely warps things, but frankly, he doesn’t care as he steps under the spray.

It’s a lot warmer than he’s used to, but not uncomfortably so. It’s warm enough that he feels his muscles relaxing, and he takes his time, lathering up and scrubbing at his skin until there’s a dull flush beneath it. When he steps out, a thin towel knotted loosely around his waist, he finds a clean set of clothes folded on top of the toilet. Clarke must have sneaked in and put them there, his old blue shirt with the holes around the collar and a pair of soft pants. He doesn’t even think twice about the fact that she waltzed in here while he was in the shower as he pulls them on.

Outside, she’s sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, going through some papers. There’s a furrow between her brows that he aches to smooth over with his thumb, and she’s shrugged off her Henley, leaving her in a thin tank top.

For a moment, Bellamy just stares at her, imagining what it would be like if they had time. This could have been his reality, coming home to her curled up on their bed, and he wants it so bad that it aches.

“Thanks,” he says, breaking the moment and padding further into the room. “For the clothes I mean.”

Clarke’s eyes flicker up and she offers him a small smile. “C’mere,” she says, resting the papers haphazardly on the bedside table. “Raven practically lives in the lab. She’s not going to stop until she can save us.”

Her smile is brittle, and he knows how she feels. To give up now, even in the face of death, would break Raven more than anything ever could. If she wanted to spend her last days under the pretence that they could be saved, they will let her, just because it gives her some sort of peace.

“Let’s go to sleep,” she suggests, pushing back the covers for him to climb in beside her. It’s only mid afternoon but they are both tired. They are always tired and for once it seems that they might actually get some rest.

The bed is big enough for them to sprawl out without touching, but Clarke rolls into him anyway, tucking herself into his side. She is no longer the soft princess she was when they first came down, but a hardened warrior like the rest of them. Her skin is pockmarked with scars and he doesn’t realise that he’s tracing them until she flinches slightly as he runs his fingers over the silvery white scar that goes down her shoulder.

“Panther,” she says, and he nods, dropping his hand. She takes the opportunity to explore his own skin, his callouses and scars and everything in between.

He stops breathing when she touches the one above his lip, but she’s quick to move on, trailing her fingers down his arm until he hisses when she gets to the still raw acid burns on his forearms.

“Black rain,” he tells her, and watches as she lifts his wrist to press a dry kiss there.

It sends his heart into a gallop and he tries to school his expression into something neutral. Those words linger on his tongue again, and he fights them down.

Instead he sighs, fixing them until she half lay across his chest and presses a kiss to her temple. “Go to sleep Clarke.”

He slips into a dreamless sleep a few minutes after her breathing evens out, and when he wakes, night has fallen, the only light coming from the orange glow of the fireplace and the moonlight dripping through the open drapes.

Clarke is still fast asleep, drooling on his shirt, and it’s cute in a way that makes him smile.

It’s times like these, the quiet moments in between when they get the chance to breathe that he thinks about his love for her. All the fairytales he read as a child described it like this a gentle sort of thing that could make them float away. He didn’t expect to find love on the Ark, not in his circumstances, but he imagined that if he did, it would be this kind: pure and idealistic.

What he feels for Clarke Griffin is not that.

It’s also not quite that which is mentioned in myths either; that hot, all consuming, passionate affair that brings out the best and worst in equal parts.

What he feels for her is something else entirely, some mix of love and trust and devotion that absolutely terrifies him and thrills him at the same time.

Bellamy’s not sure how long he lies awake, just staring at the girl in his arms, but soon she starts to stir and he watches as she comes alive.

“Hey,” he says, smiling when she blearily blinks awake.

“Bellamy,” she sighs, cuddling closer, and there’s a ghost of touch against his collarbone that might be her lips, but he can’t be sure.

They don’t say anything for a while, the only sound to be heard is their soft breathing, but soon Clarke shifts out of his hold, angling her body so that she can see him properly.

“Are you scared?” she asks, voice small.

He takes a minute to contemplate the question before shaking his head. “No.” And then, after he reaches out to brush away a lock of hair from her face, “Are you?”

“A little bit,” she admits. “I don’t like not knowing things.”

“Not knowing things?”

“After we die,” she elaborates, “No one knows for sure what happens.”

It almost makes him laugh; here they are counting down until the last seconds and Clarke is out here asking the philosophical questions. It makes his heart burst with fondness.

On the Ark, they didn’t have any fixed sort of religion. Most of the original people believed in science more than anything else, but there were still a few different texts stored on the tablets. After a moment of worrying his lip he says, “Some Romans believed in reincarnation. A lot of people believed in that actually.”

“Do you?” she asks, inching closer to him.

Bellamy flashes her a wry smile. “You have to admit, it sounds way better than eternal damnation amongst the flames of hellfire.” She snorts out a laugh. “Of course, it does depend on what you do in this life.”

“This life is a mess,” she whispers, and he ducks his head letting it rest against her forehead.

“Yeah. I know. But maybe our souls will pay for that in the next life, and then in the one after that we might have absolution,” he says, running his knuckles against her cheekbone. He always gets a little mind drunk being around Clarke like this, so close that he can practically taste her, and she doesn’t help matters when she moves even closer, noses bumping.

“Leaving the mess for someone else to deal with, huh?” she asks, voice sounding huskier than normal, and her eyelashes brush against his skin when she lets her eyes flick down to look at his lips for half a second.

“It’s still you,” he murmurs, and their mouths are impossibly close to each others right now. “It’ll always still be you.”

Their lips stop just shy of brushing against each other’s and the universe itself holds its breath.

In the end, Clarke ends up turning her head just an infinitesimal amount, kissing him on the cheek and letting her lips linger. “When we die, I hope my soul finds you again, Bellamy Blake.”

She ends up tucking herself under his arm once more, and he links their fingers together. “And I you, Clarke Griffin,” he murmurs, before letting the pull of sleep drag him under once more.

In the morning, when a yellowish haze has dawned upon them, making his skin feel too tight, too itchy to the point where he’s scratching himself raw, Clarke turns in bed and kisses him.

It’s not a poetic sort of kiss, the kind that a first kiss should be.

No, it’s messy and wet and he feels her bottom lip tremble when he sucks on it. Their teeth clack, and he tastes blood, not sure if it’s his or hers, and he’s pretty certain she accidentally licks his chin at one point, but it feels like a fitting kiss for them.

Because they are not pretty and perfect and neither is their love. Their love is bitter and war-torn, leaving ash and dust in its wake. Their love has cleaved its way through their chests, leaving bloodied fingerprints on their hearts and breath stuttering in their lungs. Their love is not the gentle kind that people write about in books, but the one whispered about only in stories of heroes with bloody teeth and more bodies in their pasts than breaths taken.

And when Clarke pulls back, gasping and shivering, her arms tightening around his neck, Bellamy just draws her in close, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head and letting his tears mingle with hers. Because their love is not perfect and will never be perfect, but it is _theirs_ , and that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> [join me in the trashcan](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com/)


End file.
